A day in the life of a race car driver

So there I sat, my gloved hands firmly wrapped around the OMP steering wheel, beads of sweat forming across my brow, eyes completely fixated on the 5 lights overhead. Five months of heckling, trash-talking and practice had come down to this. The tension in the air was almost tangible and the anxiety had started to manifest itself physically into feelings that nobody ever associates with the glamour of racing.

I’m excited, light-headed and nauseous all at the same time. I also need to pee. This is it.  This is the country’s first ever Vios Cup, which is a one make race backed by the number one automotive brand in the country; And I, along with six other motoring media personalities and five celebrities, have been invited to experience what it is like to go through a proper race weekend by training for two 15 lap exhibition races that will officially inaugurate the Vios Cup.

We’re now just minutes away from the moment we’ve all been fixated on. No more coaching, no more second chances; it all comes down to this. I’m experiencing one of the greatest rushes of adrenaline I have experienced, and the odd part is, nothing has actually happened yet.

The start of any race is one of the most electrifying experiences anyone can go through in any form of sport, and it is amplified in our case by the fact that we already had one postponement last October 13 when we got hit by typhoon Santi––leaving me with the agony of having to explain to everyone for three and a half months how I got out qualified by a professional female model and tv host despite consistently topping the time sheets, and lapping over a second quicker than the pole time in just about every practice session.

In fact, the running joke was, I was the Vios practice cup champion. I knew I needed to redeem myself, and that one and only chance would be coming up now, but the anticipation was killing me. Just then, an FIA official from the AAP comes out and waves his hands. But this is not to indicate the start, but the the stoppage of the race.

“Guys, switch your engines off and get out of the cars.” was all I could faintly hear through the padding of my crash helmet. I power down my window and signal him to come to my car.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask.

Turns out that someone had injured herself in the karting track on the other side and the Ambulance on standby needed to take her to the hospital. For obvious reasons, the race director will not begin the race without a dedicated ambulance on standby. So there we waited. Again.

“They will be back in 15 minutes. The hospital is very near.” Ferdie Ong, race director extraordinaire tells us. But I know it won’t. Because after spending a day in the life of an ambulance driver, (story to come out next week) I know that they don’t just dump you on the driveway of the ER. It takes a while to endorse the patient properly, no matter how minor the incident may be.

So this mishap only prolongs the agony. I can see one of my arch rivals, Jeff Reyes angling his car towards mine to tighten up the line into turn one. I know I need to beat him into the turn because it will be easier to pass a kidney stone than to pass him in the later laps. Then there’s Vince Pornelos. He’s up ahead with the best line into turn one. If he can take Phoemela Barranda, he can build a comfortable gap while the three of us dice it out.

All these thoughts come into your head as you sit in a motionless race car on a starting grid surrounded by thousands and thousands of people. In fact, I can honestly say that I’ve never actually seen anything like it in my entire career in any local race track. Not even Asian Formula 3, which was a massive international event, came close to the circus that was around us. But as festive as it was, with the TV cameras and the noise of the fans, once inside the car, helmet and gloves on, you’re alone with your thoughts.

You try and play out scenarios, but you’re always left with a ball in your throat because you know you cannot predict what the others are going to do. Hell, they don’t even know what they’re going to do, so how could I, right? It comes down to just instinct, and reacting to the situation.

It’s funny. People always associate the life of a race car driver with the champagne, the victory jumps on the podium, the girls, the smiles, and yes, sometimes the anger when they crash. But true as that may be, those are the highlight reels. The overwhelming vast majority of the time is spent waiting. Thinking. Analyzing. Practicing. And of course trash-talking. But nobody talks about the anxiety and the fear that sometimes suffocates you. Not necessarily the fear of crashing, but the fear of losing, which as sickening as it is, only amplifies the thrill of winning. And that is perhaps the single biggest emotion that I experienced over the last 5 months or so, and ironically enough can be summed up in just two Japanese words: Waku Doki. Look it up.

I mean it is bad enough to lose to a colleague in the industry (because you’ll never hear the end of it) but the motoring journalists on the grid around me all have experience in racing and are very highly skilled drivers that could hold their own in any local professional series. But to lose to a celebrity... that’s gonna leave a nasty mark.

No disrespect intended, of course; Phoemela Barranda, Jinno Rufino, Fabio Ide, Rhian Ramos, and Aljur Abrenica are outstanding, and shining examples of the very concept of the Vios Cup––that takes an unlicensed inexperienced driver and produces an extremely competitive one––but driving is not their core competence. So to lose out to any one of them would be as painful to them as me landing a major role in a movie or being selected to be an image model in a competition that they were auditioning for.

And just as I was marinating in those very fears and thoughts, another official comes running through the grid telling us all to start our engines. Every emotion goes back on the boil. Everyone piles on the revs. The five lights illuminate. It’s showtime.

Unfortunately, as much as I hate to do this to you, I have run out of space for this week. If you would like to read the rest of the story, find out the race results, or learn more about how you can join the Vios Cup as well as watch an exclusive mini documentary of the day in a life of a race car driver, log on to www.jamesdeakin.ph